Hope
by Guardian1
Summary: Seifer and Fujin angstfest, sequel to 'Hurt' and second in a trilogy. I'd honestly meant for 'Hurt' to stand alone, but... well, here this is.


____________

Hope  
____________

He supposed he should relax.

It was the normal 'man' thing to do, as natural and as expected as  
breathing. Women troubles? Go get drunk.

But Seifer Almasy was not a normal man. He did not need to drown his  
sorrows in vodka, whiskey or those awful multicoloured drinks with  
little umbrellas in. He was a knight, and he bore his pain proudly,  
whether it be the physical wound or the hurt of the soul.

So why was he in the darkened part of this bar, staring down morosely  
at the drink he'd just been brought?

It was a drink and he was a man, no fear involved. Seifer cooly swigged  
a large portion and curled his fingers around the glass. Hah, take  
that, alcohol.

Of course, it was all Fujin's fault. If it wasn't for her, he wouldn't  
have to succumb to the brilliant promise of a few hours of  
forgetfulness. She was an open wound... if you poked at it, it didn't  
heal... if you let it be, all sorts of disgusting things got into it,  
like fluff. Seifer couldn't do anything and he was tired of letting  
things be. Might as well take some liquid courage and forget about   
bloody silver-haired women you saw all day long. Screw handling pain.

Before he knew it, that drink was gone, and he followed it up with  
another so that it wouldn't get lonely in his stomach. Seifer Almasy  
was not a friend of alcohol; the only time he'd ever really used it  
was as a child when Matron put it on his ever-grazed knees.

Or was that iodine? Aw, who gave a shit.

His mind got blissfully fuzzy after a while and he took his gloves off.  
Seifer cooled his callouses by gripping the cup hard, the ice  
refreshing to touch. This wasn't so bad after all. Why hadn't he tried  
it before? There was a mellow feeling running all through him and   
nothing seemed too bad any more. 

One naked hand dug into his pocket and took out his wallet. Gently,  
carefully, Seifer extracted a slip of glossy card deep within the  
ancient leather and examined it. It was of a girl, looking unhappy  
and uncomfortable in SeeD cadet uniform, scowling for her ID photo.  
Kazeno, Fujin, fifth year Balamb cadet. Sweet sixteen, shaggy hair  
the colour of sun on rainclouds. It hung, carefully placed, over her  
right eye, recently lost. Fujin had probably never even seen this  
photo. Seifer had obtained it, by use of fair and foul means, through  
the office files. Gods knew why he wasted space in his bloody wallet  
for this dogeared, much-thumbed photo. It wasn't like he  
could bloody forget that face when he looked at it every morning.

It wasn't like anybody could forget it anyway.

Seifer drained the dregs of his drink and nodded brusquely to the  
waitress. Already knowing the sad pattern of a man out to get wasted,  
she discreetly provided him with another, and in turn he handed her  
the gil. Ah, yes, anything could be bought. Except love. 

Not like love meant shit in this world. _Oh, yes, I'm little Miss Rinoa  
Heartilly and I love you sooo much, Seifer, but oh look, there's your  
femmy rival Squall, I'll date him instead! Let's make a dinner date   
later so that I can give you the fragments of your heart back._   
Rinoa _deserved_ that putrid lump of pus. He in turn deserved her,  
and Seifer prayed Rinoa's heart wouldn't be fickle so that Leonhart   
would be stuck with that bitch for the _rest of his goddamn life_.

No, there was no such thing as love for Seifer. Everything that he'd  
tried to love ended up wasted and decayed. It was good that Fujin  
didn't give a shit for him, she'd end up dead too... but not like... not  
like he loved her, or anythin'.

Not like he cared that way.

Not like he got this funny feeling in his toes and his palms got slick  
every time he was graced with her rare slow smile.

Seifer took another long swig at his drink, then slumped onto his hand,  
elbow at the table. And after all this - all the sorceresses - he  
thought it couldn't get any worse. And here he was, suddenly realizing  
he'd fallen so hard for his closest friend he was liable to break every  
bone in his body. An adolescent crush. A silly infatuation... love?

No. No. Not love. Couldn't be love.

He wiped his forehead and took another sip as he stared at the photo,  
read the face he knew so well. A sudden flash of memory took him back  
a week ago, in that heatwave, and she'd been wearing barely anything,  
and -

Seifer broke out in a slight hot flush at the memory and shoved the   
photo back in it's leaf. He savoured and hated that memory; savoured  
what he'd seen, hated what he'd known. Fuusama... too good a girl for  
him. Too good a girl for any man. Yeah. Otherworldly. 

He finished his glass and took a brief look at the clock on the wall,  
with eyes that found it slightly hard to focus. Maybe that stuff had  
gotten him a little, a little, you know... that word... tipsy. Oh,  
well, it was good for him! Drunk was fun, made it hard to focus on that  
unreadable look in Kazeno's eyes his mind replayed over and over for him  
each goddamn breath.

Seifer happily drank into the night.

__________

Morning. Two in the morning.

She was awake, fully awake, ready to pounce up on the medicine kit  
with Curagas swirling at her fingertips, ready to perform the role  
she'd played so many times before. Seifer Almasy only went out   
this late to fight battles, and it was _late_ now. A slight bit of worry  
tugged at her heart as Fujin imagined the gashes and perhaps   
bulletholes decorating his body.

Fujin had dwelled on this for a few hours.

It was then he'd stumbled in, cursing quietly as he tripped over  
various articles of furniture, reeking of alcohol. Fujin was quite   
shocked. This was _not_ the usual behaviour of Seifer Almasy in any  
situation. He'd always scorned the drunkards, the druggies... he had  
graciously allowed the smokers, but those other two were fools.

Fujin turned on the lamplight and swung her legs out of bed, dressed  
in her usual attire of long-sleeved shirt and cotton shorts. She   
seized his arm and sat him down where she'd lay as he blinked at her   
owlishly.

"DRUNK," she accused, a slight note of hurt in her voice.

"Man, and here's you sounding like you _care_," Seifer said casually,  
pale jade eyes hard. "Isn't this a surprise?"

"CARE," she said simply, standing and folding her arms. Then she sighed;  
snapping couldn't be done well with one-word sentences. "Seifer, what  
the hell were you thinking?"

"I'm suddenly not allowed to have a drink?" His voice was slurred, but  
it was cold and harsh. "Since when were you Matron?"

"I don't want you getting killed," she hissed.

"Like you'd care. Like you'd fuckin' _care_. What am I for you,  
Kazeno?" the whisper came back. "A rock, that's what I am. You just bloody  
cling to me because _you've got nowhere else to go_."

"You're drunk and you're talking bullshit. Go to sleep." Don't let your  
voice wobble, don't let him show how much what he's saying hurts.

Suddenly he sprang up, eyes aflame, hands like vices around her wrists.  
"But I'm not talkin' bullshit, am I, Fusama?" Seifer used the affectionate  
term like a swearword now, slicing her to the core. "You know it's true.  
You don't _care,_ do you? You're not even capable of love! You're..  
you're just ice!" Suddenly his voice was shaking, as was the rest of  
him, staring down at her desperately. The forced chuckle that came from  
his throat was slightly hysterical as he let her go and slipped against  
the wall, leaning against it. "Ice..."

Raijin made an indistinct noise in his sleep.

It was the way he looked at her, the way that he looked through her  
transparently that suddenly made the tears bubble up, breaking free and  
washing over her, tears that had been extinct for years. It was a strange  
foreign feeling as the one alive eye wept, choked noises coming from  
her throat as she desperately tried to quell them.

Not here. Not _now._

_You think I'm not capable of love, when love bound me to your banner,  
bound me to your cause, when sometimes it was the only thing that fed me?  
You, Almasy, dare question MY love, the love that is sacred and beyond  
asking of? You? You, of all people, whom I once thought understood?_

Even drunk, he knew he'd gone too far. Her tears broke him out of his  
reverie as he stared in horrified fascination, as one would stare at a  
car crash or broken limb. He'd... he'd made Fujin _cry._

"Aw... aww, shit, Fu." His voice was back to it's normal tone as he stood  
and walked over to her hesitantly. She backed away, falling onto the bed.

"I didn't mean it," he offered weakly. "I... didn't know what I was sayin',  
Fuchan..."

Fujin merely stared, tears tangling in her eyelashes and blurring her  
vision, rendering her weak as a newborn kitten. If he tried to kill her  
now, she could not protest, but merely surrender to his actions.

Seifer's hoarse whisper was unreadable to her ears.   
"D'you hate me, Fujin?"

"Incapable of love," her voice rasped, hurt beyond belief or recognition.

He knelt at her side of the bed. "M'sorry."

"I'm sorry too." Fujin closed her one eye.

"I know you're not incapable of love."

She lay still.

The room was thick with silence and Seifer found it hard to concentrate.  
He was kinda dizzy and he almost couldn't make out her voice.

"I'm not like that." _I'm just me, and my love is a secret thing,  
private and locked-up._

"I know that...! I just... hell, I don't know what I want to say or do  
or shit and now you hate me and I'm so _tired,_ Fujin." His head  
was slumping on the bed, and Seifer rolled off miserably to one side.  
He was pathetic, worse than Squall and Zell rolled into one, and he  
deserved worse than to even breathe next to Fujin Kazeno.

Eventually she rolled off the bed and covered him with the blanket.   
"You're a stupid fuck, Seifer Almasy," she told him, not unkindly.

His voice was thick with tiredness. "I'kno." Seifer's eyelids drooped.  
"I'jus... wanna know... why you don' leave me..."

Fujin stood quietly, looking down at his form in the faint light of day.  
Then she looked away, out the window, closing her eye. Nothing to lose  
but her sanity now. "I... love you. Always have..."

She looked down at him for witness, holding her breath to see... pity?  
Disapproval?... approval?...

Face at peace, lips curved in a slight smile, golden bangs falling  
at his forehead.

Seifer was fast asleep.

Fujin didn't know whether to laugh or cry or scream his name in agony.  
So she merely stumbled towards the door and leant against it, breath  
not coming to her throat as her emotions exhausted her. Loving, hoping,  
decaying inside like this was slowly killing her. She didn't know whether  
she could take much more of it.

And suddenly, a gentle, large hand the colour of cinnamon petted her  
hair awkwardly. Raijin. Raijin was awake, Raijin, Raijin had heard...

He held one finger to his lips. "D'you want my bed?" he whispered.

Fujin shook her head mutely.

The big man tiptoed over and grabbed her pants, handing them to her.  
"Maybe you should go on a walk, ya know? You can work it out in the mornin'."

His big brown eyes were kind, filled with sympathy for his poor Fujin.  
Oh, he'd known. He could read the albino like a book. "He din't mean  
anythin' he said. He wouldn't hurt _you_..."

If she was that kind of girl, she would have hugged him; but he was Raijin  
and he understood. Tugging on her pants, Fujin nodded at him and opened the  
door. The morning was quiet and grey in the passages of Balamb Hotel, and  
she folded her arms tightly at her ribs, hugging herself close as the  
door closed softly behind her.

It was times like this that made her wish that the T-Rexaur had aimed  
for her throat.

~FIN~  



End file.
